Letters To The Editor

October 18, 2007

Stop the name-calling and teach

This is in response to the Kecoughtan parent who labeled the entire Menchville football program in "Bad sports," Oct. 9. First, I congratulate the Kecoughtan Junior Varsity on its win against Menchville.

While hot-headed adolescent boys on the football field are not a novelty, I do not condone the behavior that ensued after the game. The coaches did not excuse it as they held the players on the field after the game to run sprints for quite some time. They then spoke to the players. Parents waited on the sidelines patiently, knowing that this was the right thing to do. We only hope that our young boys learned a valuable lesson.

Unfortunately, in response to this incident, the players were branded as bad sports, our parents have been called rich snobs and rich thugs on the HR sport blog, and we were accused of not being welcoming, as we have bleachers on only one side of our field. The seating is beyond our control. Most of our parents are teachers, shipyard workers, military personnel, etc., who do an honest day's work. It saddens me that we live in a society that attacks and continues to attack using negativity instead of teaching. These are young people. What are we teaching when the response to a huge mistake is hurling insults and making sweeping negative generalizations about an entire community?